By Cam Lucadou-Wells
A woman has faced court after ordering her dog to attack a police officer in Dandenong North, leading to the dog being fatally shot.
She has pleaded guilty in the Victorian County Court to recklessly causing injury to an emergency officer as well as assault charges, contravening an intervention order, resisting arrest and theft of police OC spray.
Police were called to a home in Dandenong North after the ice-fueled accused allegedly throttled, slapped her mother in the face and slammed her head into the ground on 18 December 2021.
The woman, now 33, was in breach of a family violence intervention order at the time, an agreed prosecution summary stated.
A pair of police officers saw the woman next to an American Staffordshire Terrier mixed breed dog ‘Hunter’ in the backyard.
Observing the dog to be friendly, the officers let the dog sniff them and one of them patted the dog on the head.
As they told the woman she was under arrest and prepared to handcuff her, the woman allegedly thrashed her arms and legs and yelled: “Hunter! Hunter! Get him, get him!”
The dog clenched its jaw just above a officer’s ankle and the officer fell to ground, the prosecution summary stated.
Hunter didn’t let go as the officer tried to punch the dog and his colleague deployed OC spray in vain.
The woman then began hitting the officer’s colleague. The accused fell, and in the chaos, took the OC cannister.
In agony, the mauled officer begged for help, and his partner shot the dog.
The accused, brandishing the OC, escaped over a neighbouring fence. She was arrested shortly after and deemed unfit for police interview at the time.
The police officer required surgery for his seriously injured ankle.
In a sentencing hearing on 28 February, Victorian County Court judge Duncan Allen praised the woman’s subsequent “exemplary” performance while under intensive support and treatment under CISP bail.
Her defence lawyer applied for an adjournment to allow CISP to source long-term accommodation for the woman.
A prosecutor submitted that jail was appropriate for the recklessly causing injury charge, coupled with a community corrections order.
The sentencing hearing was adjourned until 22 March.
